About Franchthi Photographs

Franchthi Cave is located near the southwestern tip of the Argolid peninsula across the bay from the fishing village of Kiladha, Greece. In 1967, Tom Jacobsen began directing excavations inside the cave, under the sponsorship of Indiana University, Bloomington, on a permit issued through the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Excavations continued in 1968, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1976, and 1979, expanding to include the area on the slopes in front of the cave along the shore, called the “Paralia,” underwater exploration of the spring at the very back of the cave, and geophysical soundings and coring in the Bay of Kiladha. The work produced well-stratified remains from the Upper Paleolithic through the end of the Neolithic, with surface finds indicating visits, if not occupation, during most phases of historical times up to the present. Thirteen volumes in the series of specialist reports have appeared to date (later 2012), published by Indiana University Press; four others are in preparation, as is a synthesis of the entire project’s results (by Catherine Perlès). On Jacobsen’s retirement in 1997, K. D. Vitelli took over as Director of the project.

The archives of the Franchthi Project are maintained by the IU Archives, and include, in addition to the color images included here, an extensive collection of black and white negatives and contact prints, copies of the excavation notebooks, the original inventory books for all finds, correspondence related to the project and its symposia held in Bloomington, a few soil samples, copies of the volumes in the Franchthi publication series, copies of many articles by Franchthi staff, and other related documents. The original field notebooks and copies of the inventory books are housed, along with all of the finds from the project, in the Archaeological Museum, and it’s storerooms in the Leonardo, in Nafplio, Greece. Additional copies of notebooks are in the archives of the American School in Athens, and in the Mayor’s office in Kranidhi, the political center for Kiladha.